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I think this article is skirting around the edge of the issue. Yes, we need to make people more willing to enter adulthood. Yes, adulthood has more responsibi

I think this article is skirting around the edge of the issue. Yes, we need to make people more willing to enter adulthood. Yes, adulthood has more responsibilities which should be more privileges. The problem is that we're granting privileges in society without the associated responsibility. Only a fool would assume responsibility when there's no benefit or requirement to do so. This is the society we've created for people. They're only just using it to their advantage, and I can't blame them. Instead of drinking, driving, voting, etc... Being conveyed at an age perhaps there's some other meaningful metric that could be used in combination with a minimum age. One idea I've considered, but not fully, is the idea of being able to vote only if you pay taxes. The adage was "no taxation without representation" but what we've constructed is "representation without taxation" in a large portion of the population. Despite all the uproar over anything federal in the US, governance is still primarily at the state and local levels. Since nearly everyone pays some sort of state or local tax (income, sales, property, etc...) Voting would remain intact for nearly everyone at the level that really matters. The federal level it would not be as the number of tax payers is a lot less because it's primarily income based. Obviously this isn't a fully fleshed out idea, but putting an incentive to monetarily participate in society needs to be strong one. With no skin in the game, so to speak, you have no incentive to consider both the collective good with your own good.

jen20 4y ago
At least in Texas, 6-year-old pay sales tax on Candy (unless it’s under 50c and sold from a vending machine). Should they be allowed to vote? I am highly supportive of reforming both the tax code and the requirement to exercise of responsibility instead of just rights, but this approach definitely does not feel particularly thought through, as you call out.
- Proven 4y ago
- frankbreetz 4y ago
  No, 6 year old would not be allowed to vote >>perhaps there's some other meaningful metric that could be used in combination with a minimum age
simmerup 4y ago
> Only a fool would assume responsibility when there's no benefit or requirement to do so. I take issue with this statement. It’s such an American take to say that we need to reward all responsibility monetarily or meaningfully. A lot of time taking on responsibility for something is a privilege that you’re granted by a community, and you get a feeling of fulfilment and sense of meaning/community out of it. Replacing that human feeling with money a lot of the time cheapens it and makes the whole thing transactional.
- synu 4y ago
  I don’t live in America so I can’t say if GP is right or not, but I don’t think GP is saying those aren’t benefits, just that those benefits are given out to everyone regardless of taking responsibility, so there’s no incentive for anyone to do so. At least that’s how I read it.
- Dudeman112 4y ago
  Reminds me of that infamous comment[1] The reward doesn't have to be only monetary, but honestly? Actual responsibility is stressful when the cost of failure is high. It can also cost lots of time Responsibility isn't rewarding by itself to me - the things you've mentioned as intrinsic rewards can be achieved without it Maybe if I am ever financially independent and bored with everything else in life I'll rock that way to fill the void. Not before that [1] >paulriddle on Nov 16, 2019 It's funny how carefully you're stepping around financially rewarding people who do the work. It's like you know your status does not allow you to own the money generated, so you're settling for owning the results, the process, the method, the responsibility, the all. You are weak.
- AstralStorm 4y ago
  Thing is, people are not being rewarded even monetarily. Wages have been stagnating for many years. Many will end up homeless if they're not paid enough, and it's getting there. So no, replacing money with feel good benefits is not good enough. Most importantly it causes a problem where you're tied to a particular benefit if it is important. You cannot really have a community when people don't have enough to eat or place to live. Even more so, when some cop will arrive and force you out ignoring that community if you don't pay. It is also hard to build a community when you work 40+ hours a week, as people tend to be drained and need serious alone time to rest, especially if their work involves constant contact with others.
mLuby 4y ago
I've seen estimates of 40-60% of all households not paying anything in taxes even if they are filing them. Conditioning voting rights on having paid taxes would disenfranchise a huge swath of low income people as well as people with accounting strategies to minimize their taxes. It'd certainly wouldn't help the US's underwhelming voter turnout. I agree with your overall point about rights without duties.
- MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  I am sure those low income people are still expected to die for their betters on a foreign battlefield?
  - mLuby 4y ago
    Teacher: Why are only [veterans] allowed to vote? Student: It's a reward for doing government service. Teacher: No. No! Something given has no value. Teacher: What's the moral difference between a civilian and [veteran]? Student: A veteran accepts personal responsibility for safety of the body politic, defending it with his life. A civilian does not. -Starship Troopers classroom scene https://youtu.be/EBxgrr0wL8M https://youtu.be/EBxgrr0wL8M (Heinlein had some weird ideas and the movie's satire isn't obvious enough to those who most need it to be.)
- cm2012 4y ago
  The 50% number is for people who don't pay federal income tax (because their refund exceeds the income tax amount). Most of those still have payroll tax, ssn and Medicare deducted from their paychecks, and also pay sales tax.
causality0 4y ago
The issue with a voting tax is that the people who pay it might vote to make it harder for the people who don't to start paying it and voting.
- jstanley 4y ago
  You could just as well argue that the issue with a voting age is that the people of that age might vote it make it harder for younger people to start voting.
  - choward 4y ago
    With age every year you are guaranteed to have your age increase by one year. You and people your age will eventually reach the voting age. At that point you can vote to change the voting age. When it comes to wealth, you are not guaranteed to ever make enough money to pay taxes. You could go your whole life not being allowed to vote.
mabbo 4y ago
> being able to vote only if you pay taxes You legitimately don't see any problem with this? There's a huge swath of people who are unemployed, disabled, or otherwise unable to work. There's people with criminal records who effectively are barred from most jobs. There's entire towns where the factory that employed most of the people went out of business and now everyone is unemployed, unless they move- which they can't because their homes are now worthless and they have mortgages. You're talking about taking away the voting rights of all of those people because they're too poor for you. Bad luck on their part, not being born to privilege. And of course you don't even see where this goes next. Once you start to take away the voting rights of such people, they have no ability to fight as you keep going, as you take more away from them. They have no votes, no voice, no ability to stop those with power. I cannot imagine a more sociopathic, heartless idea than the one you've just proposed.
- AstralStorm 4y ago
  Not to mention, specifically made illegal in multiple constitutions for more than the reasons stated above.
- mhitza 4y ago
  > I cannot imagine a more sociopathic, heartless idea than the one you've just proposed. I would refrain from calling someones idea sociopathic, when left unelaborated. I've theorized myself with the idea of having only people that pay taxes vote, or rather, having representational democracy an opt-in system via taxation. Currently there is no way to opt out of taxes, and the things you get in return are rather slim privileges and benefits. I only have a shallow understanding of the form of democracy that the US employs, but what impression I have of it, is that representational democracy is just a facade when big corporations have the budget to push their agendas via lobbying. When I think of people championing for the unprivileged, I can only think of the civil society (NGOs) as having a direct effect. If the world had in place something more akin to liquid democracy, I would have better trust in the system. Do you think that currently democracy is working, when we can pull up recent examples, like a few select people having the power to make abortion illegal?
choward 4y ago
While I agree that maybe we should use since other metric for adulthood, I completely disagree about only being able to vote if you pay taxes. That has to be the most regressive idea I've ever seen on this site. So because you're so poor you don't pay taxes, you don't get to vote? What if you don't believe the laws are fair and that's why you're too broke to pay taxes? Oh well, your voice will never be heard. > With no skin in the game, so to speak, you have no incentive to consider both the collective good with your own good. This idea that how much money you make shows merit and how responsible are and that you have "skin in the game" is completely absurd. Everyone who lives in this country has skin in the game. How much money you make doesn't imply merit and worthyness to vote. A rich person paying capital gains taxes as their only taxes isn't a better person than someone working multiple minimum wage jobs. The results of elections can affect everyone. They can put us at war for example. They can affect the environment you live in and your quality of life. Also, how would this even be implemented. At the local level what if you pay sales tax? Do you show a receipt to vote? At the federal level what if you pay taxes but you're so poor you get it all back? Is it that you paid taxes to begin with that gives you the right vote? Do you have to net lose money to the government. Can I just donate a dollar to the federal government and call it a federal voting tax, then be able to vote? Anyway, I honestly want to know what problems you're solving by treating poor people like felons.
- elmerfud 4y ago
  You're missing the entire point. None of what I said was about treating poor like felons. It's was a broadly conceived idea, which admittedly not fully formed, was about having everyone have a stake in what's happening. If your only stake is, my vote can be used to get me more money with no perceptible downside to me then I'll always vote more money. This is the situation the poor is in currently. Why would they not vote for more subsidies? They literally have no downside to wealth redistribution. My point wasn't about finding a way to punish then, but you encourage them to not be in that situation. That's all. Just as the OP, enter adulthood.
bsuvc 4y ago
> One idea I've considered, but not fully, is the idea of being able to vote only if you pay taxes I've seen some variant of this on HN recently, proposing ways to TAKE AWAY voting rights. (The last time that sticks in my mind was someone saying you should only be allowed to vote if you do so under the guidance of a sanctioned organization like a non profit social organization!) After all the progress in voting rights during the last century, it is disheartening to read people seriously proposing taking rights away from people.
- Dudeman112 4y ago
  Everyone likes democracy. But only until the will of the people goes real hard against their views
csydas 4y ago
I will really try hard to not make this feel like a personal attack as I don't think you have bad intentions at all, and as you admit, you didn't flesh out this idea. But the above reads with so much complicated and murky language and the subsequent child posts have similar ones which makes it a very nervous read. (sorry, this will be a wall of text since for me there's a lot to unpack in this discussion) The point of this post is that I think it's wrong to assume we can perfectly define a system of privileges and rights because it's so wildly inconsistent in everyone's understandings. We debated such things for literally thousands of years with some fairly prestigious minds and the best we can do is just try to fix the issues introduced by previous attempts, and that is getting more and more difficult each year. Worse, monetary influence acts outside of the societal system and the desire for improved revenue/profits has undue power over that of an individual participating in society. How exactly do we define or quantify a proper amount of responsibility and privilege? How do we define the proper threshold of such things? How do we explain comparisons to other societies where the threshold for such privileges is far lower or even non-existent, and they _don't_ have the troubles that are prognosticated during discussions on social policy? Society is a very tricky subject I think and the fact that collectively humans have been debating it since we figured out how to communicate to each other tells me it's not such an easy issue to solve, and more like something you just need to constantly be revisiting and fixing/improving. Societal judgements on responsibility is wildly inconsistent and I find it exceptionally challenging to even refine a lot of privileges and responsibilities that a given individual has. I'm relatively successful in a technical career; I take on a lot of responsibilities (person management, policy making, judgment calls on constant grey-area situations), and I'm not sure what privileges I actually have that many of my staff or that a sandwich maker at a corner shop doesn't have in most cases. I have more money, sure; socially, I'm more respected because it's a "respectable" position, I have more opportunities because I tend to meet a lot more people in places of power who see results and want the results. But is that actually my privilege or is it the choice and privilege of others who grant it to me? That is, can I actually enact such privilege or is it exposure to opportunities that others wouldn't get? What exactly is privilege in practical terms, not dictionary definitions? Conversely, the sandwich maker arguably makes more people happier and society better on a day to day basis than I do; a lot of my job is telling people either what they did wrong or just flat out "no", and that leaves a lot of people unhappy, while not really making anyone else happier. After all, I didn't really make their lives better directly, I just fulfilled a role in a process which has a neutral outcome for most people. Isn't the sandwich maker far more important in their role in society than I am? Is this responsibility on their part that they bring more overall good to society by working a difficult and low-paying job? What exactly is responsibility in practical terms, not dictionary definitions? I'm not just trying to muddy the waters with semantics; I think these are real things you need to consider if you want to start a discussion to attribute privilege to responsibility since there is a very wide gap in understandings here and often I can't really fault the logic. My personal take is that society at large works because collectively most people realize it doesn't and by all means it shouldn't, and that society requires constant maintenance and evolution to keep it running. Don't forget the classic xkcd[0] about modern software dependencies, as I think this is a fairly apt comparison for society. One of the ways that technology _does_ address this is that it constantly evolves, and the former pillars of society end up becoming vestigial and eventually dropped. In society, much happens the same -- previous "givens" that were logically and heavily debated by some pretty smart people end up being completely dropped as new advances come. > "representation without taxation" in a large portion of the population. The issue I have with this is that the opposite is also true -- governance without representation is increasingly becoming more and more common for reasons that have very little logic behind them. In the US anyways, a few grams of weed in many states is enough to remove your representation. Having a lower class job or not enough money is enough to remove your representation. Living on the wrong side of the street after rezoning a district is effectively enough to remove your representation. Laws I consider to be woefully outdated/misinformed or laws that are actively hostile towards populations are a far bigger concern for me than "are the lazy stoners Bob and Alice responsible enough to vote on issues." And I don't think the answer is some council that arbitrates and thinks on these things, as it seems our willingness as humans to worship such entities is just too built-in, and furthermore, I think it's not really reasonable to claim that we can have objective systems in such a matter. The US Supreme Court is under fire for this right now (and has been from basically all ideologies for awhile), and they're suppose to be the highest court in the land [1] that are practiced and careful logicians and reasonable persons. The US still has complete worship of its constitution and its authors, despite the fact that mostly the constitution was a brainchild of a few individuals, and they borrowed a lot of it from earlier works. The original intent of design to change and be rebuild/revisited was attempted to be done with amendments, but even that has a glacial pace, with the most recent amendment taking 202 years to come to fruition [2]. Even if we did have a perfectly working council that was constantly, it doesn't really address the fact that so much of society is influenced and controlled by non-governmental entities. Remember, it as an abhorrent idea for most employers to hire people who use recreational drugs besides alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine. The horror stories of what might happen were paraded around for decades, right up until a global pandemic happened and suddenly the workforce vanished, and suddenly all those stoners destined to destroy society seemed to be acceptable candidates to drive trucks. Seems the stoners have been doing pretty alright with their new jobs and none of the doom and gloom came to be, and arguably it was good for society that a lot of these services kept working. But this wasn't legislated or governed societal advancement, this was that revenue lines wouldn't go up if businesses didn't change their minds. Corporations having "rights" is a very strange concept to me, as I'm not sure what responsibility they actually take on that contributes back to society; an exchange of services is not a responsibility, and demonstrably throughout history, businesses and corporations have fought for the _right to not be responsible towards certain persons_, and many times they won. Nevermind that corporations are awful at judging what is a needed responsibility as we saw during the pandemic (think of how many "essential workers" had to go to work during the early parts, holding advertising signs and wearing costumes for shops that no one could go to anyways) It's wrong in my opinion to think about this in terms of quantifying contributions and required responsibilities versus privileges, because when we see what actually happens and how society actually works, there is not even a passing correlation between the two, with extreme power imbalances and responsibilities and privileges that fall far outside the realm of government and society. [0] - https://xkcd.com/2347 https://xkcd.com/2347 [1] - I'm not interested in discussing Supreme Court decisions, so I'd rather people read this and just agree that the court makes contentious decisions, perhaps by design. [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Ratified_amendments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_Unit...
snapplebobapple 4y ago
I thought about this, it's not enough to limit voting to those that pay taxes because only a small percentage of people pay taxes in an amount anywhere near what they cost in taxes and taxes are not voluntary. You need to make the person voting have skin in the game and that means it need to be voluntary and it also needs to be enough that it will sting if things go badly. I think the best way to do that would be to make potential voters post a nontransferable nonredeemable bond for some number of years (say 10 years) amount of money with the government if they want to vote. I would suggest averaging the last five years of income tax and setting that number at the equivalent of 2 weeks of income with a floor at full time minimum wage so that guys that earn a lot have to put a lot at risk and guys that earn a little have to risk less. then for that whole period the bond is with the government the bond should be at risk if the government runs a deficit above some small wiggle room, say 1% of government revenue. When the next election comes you have to top up your bond.
foogazi 4y ago
> Yes, we need to make people more willing to enter adulthood. People age into adulthood on their own. I really don’t understand this attitude of enticing folks to grow up

jen20 4y ago

At least in Texas, 6-year-old pay sales tax on Candy (unless it’s under 50c and sold from a vending machine). Should they be allowed to vote? I am highly supportive of reforming both the tax code and the requirement to exercise of responsibility instead of just rights, but this approach definitely does not feel particularly thought through, as you call out.

Proven 4y ago
frankbreetz 4y ago
No, 6 year old would not be allowed to vote >>perhaps there's some other meaningful metric that could be used in combination with a minimum age

simmerup 4y ago

> Only a fool would assume responsibility when there's no benefit or requirement to do so. I take issue with this statement. It’s such an American take to say that we need to reward all responsibility monetarily or meaningfully. A lot of time taking on responsibility for something is a privilege that you’re granted by a community, and you get a feeling of fulfilment and sense of meaning/community out of it. Replacing that human feeling with money a lot of the time cheapens it and makes the whole thing transactional.

synu 4y ago
I don’t live in America so I can’t say if GP is right or not, but I don’t think GP is saying those aren’t benefits, just that those benefits are given out to everyone regardless of taking responsibility, so there’s no incentive for anyone to do so. At least that’s how I read it.
Dudeman112 4y ago
Reminds me of that infamous comment[1] The reward doesn't have to be only monetary, but honestly? Actual responsibility is stressful when the cost of failure is high. It can also cost lots of time Responsibility isn't rewarding by itself to me - the things you've mentioned as intrinsic rewards can be achieved without it Maybe if I am ever financially independent and bored with everything else in life I'll rock that way to fill the void. Not before that [1] >paulriddle on Nov 16, 2019 It's funny how carefully you're stepping around financially rewarding people who do the work. It's like you know your status does not allow you to own the money generated, so you're settling for owning the results, the process, the method, the responsibility, the all. You are weak.
AstralStorm 4y ago
Thing is, people are not being rewarded even monetarily. Wages have been stagnating for many years. Many will end up homeless if they're not paid enough, and it's getting there. So no, replacing money with feel good benefits is not good enough. Most importantly it causes a problem where you're tied to a particular benefit if it is important. You cannot really have a community when people don't have enough to eat or place to live. Even more so, when some cop will arrive and force you out ignoring that community if you don't pay. It is also hard to build a community when you work 40+ hours a week, as people tend to be drained and need serious alone time to rest, especially if their work involves constant contact with others.

mLuby 4y ago

I've seen estimates of 40-60% of all households not paying anything in taxes even if they are filing them. Conditioning voting rights on having paid taxes would disenfranchise a huge swath of low income people as well as people with accounting strategies to minimize their taxes. It'd certainly wouldn't help the US's underwhelming voter turnout. I agree with your overall point about rights without duties.

MomoXenosaga 4y ago
I am sure those low income people are still expected to die for their betters on a foreign battlefield?
- mLuby 4y ago
  Teacher: Why are only [veterans] allowed to vote? Student: It's a reward for doing government service. Teacher: No. No! Something given has no value. Teacher: What's the moral difference between a civilian and [veteran]? Student: A veteran accepts personal responsibility for safety of the body politic, defending it with his life. A civilian does not. -Starship Troopers classroom scene https://youtu.be/EBxgrr0wL8M https://youtu.be/EBxgrr0wL8M (Heinlein had some weird ideas and the movie's satire isn't obvious enough to those who most need it to be.)
cm2012 4y ago
The 50% number is for people who don't pay federal income tax (because their refund exceeds the income tax amount). Most of those still have payroll tax, ssn and Medicare deducted from their paychecks, and also pay sales tax.

causality0 4y ago

The issue with a voting tax is that the people who pay it might vote to make it harder for the people who don't to start paying it and voting.

jstanley 4y ago
You could just as well argue that the issue with a voting age is that the people of that age might vote it make it harder for younger people to start voting.
- choward 4y ago
  With age every year you are guaranteed to have your age increase by one year. You and people your age will eventually reach the voting age. At that point you can vote to change the voting age. When it comes to wealth, you are not guaranteed to ever make enough money to pay taxes. You could go your whole life not being allowed to vote.

mabbo 4y ago

> being able to vote only if you pay taxes You legitimately don't see any problem with this? There's a huge swath of people who are unemployed, disabled, or otherwise unable to work. There's people with criminal records who effectively are barred from most jobs. There's entire towns where the factory that employed most of the people went out of business and now everyone is unemployed, unless they move- which they can't because their homes are now worthless and they have mortgages. You're talking about taking away the voting rights of all of those people because they're too poor for you. Bad luck on their part, not being born to privilege. And of course you don't even see where this goes next. Once you start to take away the voting rights of such people, they have no ability to fight as you keep going, as you take more away from them. They have no votes, no voice, no ability to stop those with power. I cannot imagine a more sociopathic, heartless idea than the one you've just proposed.

AstralStorm 4y ago
Not to mention, specifically made illegal in multiple constitutions for more than the reasons stated above.
mhitza 4y ago
> I cannot imagine a more sociopathic, heartless idea than the one you've just proposed. I would refrain from calling someones idea sociopathic, when left unelaborated. I've theorized myself with the idea of having only people that pay taxes vote, or rather, having representational democracy an opt-in system via taxation. Currently there is no way to opt out of taxes, and the things you get in return are rather slim privileges and benefits. I only have a shallow understanding of the form of democracy that the US employs, but what impression I have of it, is that representational democracy is just a facade when big corporations have the budget to push their agendas via lobbying. When I think of people championing for the unprivileged, I can only think of the civil society (NGOs) as having a direct effect. If the world had in place something more akin to liquid democracy, I would have better trust in the system. Do you think that currently democracy is working, when we can pull up recent examples, like a few select people having the power to make abortion illegal?

choward 4y ago

While I agree that maybe we should use since other metric for adulthood, I completely disagree about only being able to vote if you pay taxes. That has to be the most regressive idea I've ever seen on this site. So because you're so poor you don't pay taxes, you don't get to vote? What if you don't believe the laws are fair and that's why you're too broke to pay taxes? Oh well, your voice will never be heard. > With no skin in the game, so to speak, you have no incentive to consider both the collective good with your own good. This idea that how much money you make shows merit and how responsible are and that you have "skin in the game" is completely absurd. Everyone who lives in this country has skin in the game. How much money you make doesn't imply merit and worthyness to vote. A rich person paying capital gains taxes as their only taxes isn't a better person than someone working multiple minimum wage jobs. The results of elections can affect everyone. They can put us at war for example. They can affect the environment you live in and your quality of life. Also, how would this even be implemented. At the local level what if you pay sales tax? Do you show a receipt to vote? At the federal level what if you pay taxes but you're so poor you get it all back? Is it that you paid taxes to begin with that gives you the right vote? Do you have to net lose money to the government. Can I just donate a dollar to the federal government and call it a federal voting tax, then be able to vote? Anyway, I honestly want to know what problems you're solving by treating poor people like felons.

elmerfud 4y ago
You're missing the entire point. None of what I said was about treating poor like felons. It's was a broadly conceived idea, which admittedly not fully formed, was about having everyone have a stake in what's happening. If your only stake is, my vote can be used to get me more money with no perceptible downside to me then I'll always vote more money. This is the situation the poor is in currently. Why would they not vote for more subsidies? They literally have no downside to wealth redistribution. My point wasn't about finding a way to punish then, but you encourage them to not be in that situation. That's all. Just as the OP, enter adulthood.

bsuvc 4y ago

> One idea I've considered, but not fully, is the idea of being able to vote only if you pay taxes I've seen some variant of this on HN recently, proposing ways to TAKE AWAY voting rights. (The last time that sticks in my mind was someone saying you should only be allowed to vote if you do so under the guidance of a sanctioned organization like a non profit social organization!) After all the progress in voting rights during the last century, it is disheartening to read people seriously proposing taking rights away from people.

Dudeman112 4y ago
Everyone likes democracy. But only until the will of the people goes real hard against their views

csydas 4y ago

I will really try hard to not make this feel like a personal attack as I don't think you have bad intentions at all, and as you admit, you didn't flesh out this idea. But the above reads with so much complicated and murky language and the subsequent child posts have similar ones which makes it a very nervous read. (sorry, this will be a wall of text since for me there's a lot to unpack in this discussion) The point of this post is that I think it's wrong to assume we can perfectly define a system of privileges and rights because it's so wildly inconsistent in everyone's understandings. We debated such things for literally thousands of years with some fairly prestigious minds and the best we can do is just try to fix the issues introduced by previous attempts, and that is getting more and more difficult each year. Worse, monetary influence acts outside of the societal system and the desire for improved revenue/profits has undue power over that of an individual participating in society. How exactly do we define or quantify a proper amount of responsibility and privilege? How do we define the proper threshold of such things? How do we explain comparisons to other societies where the threshold for such privileges is far lower or even non-existent, and they _don't_ have the troubles that are prognosticated during discussions on social policy? Society is a very tricky subject I think and the fact that collectively humans have been debating it since we figured out how to communicate to each other tells me it's not such an easy issue to solve, and more like something you just need to constantly be revisiting and fixing/improving. Societal judgements on responsibility is wildly inconsistent and I find it exceptionally challenging to even refine a lot of privileges and responsibilities that a given individual has. I'm relatively successful in a technical career; I take on a lot of responsibilities (person management, policy making, judgment calls on constant grey-area situations), and I'm not sure what privileges I actually have that many of my staff or that a sandwich maker at a corner shop doesn't have in most cases. I have more money, sure; socially, I'm more respected because it's a "respectable" position, I have more opportunities because I tend to meet a lot more people in places of power who see results and want the results. But is that actually my privilege or is it the choice and privilege of others who grant it to me? That is, can I actually enact such privilege or is it exposure to opportunities that others wouldn't get? What exactly is privilege in practical terms, not dictionary definitions? Conversely, the sandwich maker arguably makes more people happier and society better on a day to day basis than I do; a lot of my job is telling people either what they did wrong or just flat out "no", and that leaves a lot of people unhappy, while not really making anyone else happier. After all, I didn't really make their lives better directly, I just fulfilled a role in a process which has a neutral outcome for most people. Isn't the sandwich maker far more important in their role in society than I am? Is this responsibility on their part that they bring more overall good to society by working a difficult and low-paying job? What exactly is responsibility in practical terms, not dictionary definitions? I'm not just trying to muddy the waters with semantics; I think these are real things you need to consider if you want to start a discussion to attribute privilege to responsibility since there is a very wide gap in understandings here and often I can't really fault the logic. My personal take is that society at large works because collectively most people realize it doesn't and by all means it shouldn't, and that society requires constant maintenance and evolution to keep it running. Don't forget the classic xkcd[0] about modern software dependencies, as I think this is a fairly apt comparison for society. One of the ways that technology _does_ address this is that it constantly evolves, and the former pillars of society end up becoming vestigial and eventually dropped. In society, much happens the same -- previous "givens" that were logically and heavily debated by some pretty smart people end up being completely dropped as new advances come. > "representation without taxation" in a large portion of the population. The issue I have with this is that the opposite is also true -- governance without representation is increasingly becoming more and more common for reasons that have very little logic behind them. In the US anyways, a few grams of weed in many states is enough to remove your representation. Having a lower class job or not enough money is enough to remove your representation. Living on the wrong side of the street after rezoning a district is effectively enough to remove your representation. Laws I consider to be woefully outdated/misinformed or laws that are actively hostile towards populations are a far bigger concern for me than "are the lazy stoners Bob and Alice responsible enough to vote on issues." And I don't think the answer is some council that arbitrates and thinks on these things, as it seems our willingness as humans to worship such entities is just too built-in, and furthermore, I think it's not really reasonable to claim that we can have objective systems in such a matter. The US Supreme Court is under fire for this right now (and has been from basically all ideologies for awhile), and they're suppose to be the highest court in the land [1] that are practiced and careful logicians and reasonable persons. The US still has complete worship of its constitution and its authors, despite the fact that mostly the constitution was a brainchild of a few individuals, and they borrowed a lot of it from earlier works. The original intent of design to change and be rebuild/revisited was attempted to be done with amendments, but even that has a glacial pace, with the most recent amendment taking 202 years to come to fruition [2]. Even if we did have a perfectly working council that was constantly, it doesn't really address the fact that so much of society is influenced and controlled by non-governmental entities. Remember, it as an abhorrent idea for most employers to hire people who use recreational drugs besides alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine. The horror stories of what might happen were paraded around for decades, right up until a global pandemic happened and suddenly the workforce vanished, and suddenly all those stoners destined to destroy society seemed to be acceptable candidates to drive trucks. Seems the stoners have been doing pretty alright with their new jobs and none of the doom and gloom came to be, and arguably it was good for society that a lot of these services kept working. But this wasn't legislated or governed societal advancement, this was that revenue lines wouldn't go up if businesses didn't change their minds. Corporations having "rights" is a very strange concept to me, as I'm not sure what responsibility they actually take on that contributes back to society; an exchange of services is not a responsibility, and demonstrably throughout history, businesses and corporations have fought for the _right to not be responsible towards certain persons_, and many times they won. Nevermind that corporations are awful at judging what is a needed responsibility as we saw during the pandemic (think of how many "essential workers" had to go to work during the early parts, holding advertising signs and wearing costumes for shops that no one could go to anyways) It's wrong in my opinion to think about this in terms of quantifying contributions and required responsibilities versus privileges, because when we see what actually happens and how society actually works, there is not even a passing correlation between the two, with extreme power imbalances and responsibilities and privileges that fall far outside the realm of government and society. [0] - https://xkcd.com/2347 https://xkcd.com/2347 [1] - I'm not interested in discussing Supreme Court decisions, so I'd rather people read this and just agree that the court makes contentious decisions, perhaps by design. [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Ratified_amendments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_Unit...

snapplebobapple 4y ago

I thought about this, it's not enough to limit voting to those that pay taxes because only a small percentage of people pay taxes in an amount anywhere near what they cost in taxes and taxes are not voluntary. You need to make the person voting have skin in the game and that means it need to be voluntary and it also needs to be enough that it will sting if things go badly. I think the best way to do that would be to make potential voters post a nontransferable nonredeemable bond for some number of years (say 10 years) amount of money with the government if they want to vote. I would suggest averaging the last five years of income tax and setting that number at the equivalent of 2 weeks of income with a floor at full time minimum wage so that guys that earn a lot have to put a lot at risk and guys that earn a little have to risk less. then for that whole period the bond is with the government the bond should be at risk if the government runs a deficit above some small wiggle room, say 1% of government revenue. When the next election comes you have to top up your bond.

foogazi 4y ago

> Yes, we need to make people more willing to enter adulthood. People age into adulthood on their own. I really don’t understand this attitude of enticing folks to grow up